Creole patriotism vs. religious enthusiasm in 19th century Caribbean: The case of Peter Blair

Creole patriotism vs. religious enthusiasm in 19th century Caribbean: The case of Peter Blair Markéta Křížová Àroughout the course of the 19th century, Cuban thinker José Antonio Saco declared many times that the Africans were unable to fully integrate into the national societies of the New World and to share their patriotic ideals.1 Similar opinions were in the same period voiced also in other parts of the Caribbean. Àe fears even led to the efforts to “repatriate” the liberated blacks back to Africa.2 Certainly the identity-making processes among the enslaved as well as emancipated populations of Africans in America had been painful and complicated. One of the reasons was the enduring of ethnic and tribal loyalties, the other the racial oppression embedded in laws and everyday practice that stimulated the sense of “Africaness”. But at least some of the “coloureds” acquired a rather intensive sense of belonging to their new homelands at surprising rapidity and with equally surprising intensity, combining it with other layers of identities, be those ethnic, religious or professional. Àe processes of “creolization”, that is, the cultural and social “regrounding”, the creation of new and coherent social formations out of the fragmentation brought about by the processes of colonization, represent today an important theme for the historians of the New World.3 An illustrative case offers the life story of Peter Blair, Afro-American of slave origin, member of the Moravian Church and long-term missionary on the Mosquito Coast in present-day Nicaragua. His insertion to this religious body and his calling for a mission service uprooted him from the young creole society of Jamaica, but he succeeded in maintaining his sense of belonging even at a distance. 1 See OPATRNÝ, Josef, José Antonio Saco y la búsqueda de la identidad cubana, Prague 2010. 2 For the “repatriation” of Africans from America back to Africa see, for example, PETERSON, John, Province of Freedom: A History of Sierra Leone, 1787–1870, Madison 1969. 3 Out of the ample bibliography to the problems of creolization in the New World can be named the following: BRATHWAITE, Edward, The Development of Creole Society in Jamaica, 1770–1820, Oxford 1971; BOLLAND, O. Nigel, Creolization and Creole Societies: A Cultural Nationalist View of Caribbean Social History, in: HENESSY, Alistair (ed.), Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century Caribbean, Vol. 1, London 1992, pp. 51–79; TROUILLOT, MichelRolph, Culture on the Edges: Creolization in the Plantation Context, in: Plantation Society in the Americas 5 (1998), pp. 8–28; COHEN, Robin — TONINATO, Paola (eds.), The Creolization Reader: Studies in mixed identities and cultures, London 2010. OPEN ACCESS MARKÉTA KŘÍŽOVÁ 147 MORAVIAN MISSION IN THE ENGLISH CARIBBEAN Àe Protestant “Moravian Church” was established at the beginning of the 18th century in Saxony, in the newly founded city of Herrnhut, by religious refugees from Moravia who claimed to be direct successors of the church that arose in response to the Hussite wars of the 15th century and was known as the Unity of Brethren.4 In the 1730s, the Church launched a massive expansion, founding towns in many countries of Europe, but also in North America, and organizing them according to the model of Herrnhut. At the same time, missions began among native groups in Greenland, the Caribbean, Pennsylvania and Ohio, South Africa and India. By the end of the 18th century, the Moravian Church had developed into a broad network of Ortsgemeinen (i.e. seÞlement congregations) and missionary stations across all of the known world. Even though the religious enthusiasm was somewhat abated, the Church maintained until the 19th century its doctrine and its specific lifestyle. While incorporating medieval reform Christianity and stressing a simple and peaceful life in the manner of Christ and his disciples, the Moravians also participated eagerly in local economies. Many of their towns became booming artisanal and commercial centers. Still, they resisted being dissolved and absorbed by the major societies in the regions where its members seÞled. Àeir ceremonies, festivals, use of specific codes, and the awareness of a distinctive group history all contributed to the creation and preservation of the sense of belonging of the Moravians.5 When in 1848, in the midst of revolutionary and nationalist upheaval, they were invited to join the newly created “national alliance” of German Protestant Churches, they refused with the argument that “the Church of the Brethren is not a purely German church, but, rather, it has members in all parts of the world. […] Àe German part of the Church of the Brethrnen is united with the English and American parts to form a single whole, and therefore is this Church different from all German provincial 4 The members of the church that was established in Herrnhut referred to themselves originally as “brothers” and “sisters” and to their religious community Brüdergemeine (Unity of Brethren), which was the German translation of the Czech denomination of the original church (Jednota bratrská) or its Latin version Unitas Fratrum. Both the terms Herrn huter and Moravians were designations used by outsiders, and were only hesitantly adopted by the Brüdergemeine itself. (LEMPA, Heikki — PEUCKER, Paul, Introduction, in: LEMPA, Heikki — PEUCKER, Paul (eds.), Self, Community, World: Moravian Education in a Transatlantic World, Bethlehem 2010, p. 21.) For the history of the Moravian Church see CRANZ, David, Alte und Neue Brüder-Historie oder kurz gefaßte Geschichte der Evangelischen Brüder-Unität in den ältern Zeiten und insonderheit in dem gegenwärtigen Jahrhundert, Barby/Leipzig 1771 (repr. Hildesheim 1973); MÜLLER, Joseph Theodor, Geschichte der Böhmischen Brüder, Herrnhut 1922–1931, 3 vols.; HAMILTON, J. Taylor — HAMILTON, Kenneth G., History of the Moravian Church, Bethlehem 1967; MEYER, Dietrich, Zinzendorf und die Herrnhuted Brüdergemeine, 1700–2000, Göttingen 2000; and also my study, KŘÍŽOVÁ, Markéta, Building a new identity: the first decades of existence of the Moravian Church, in: BŮŽEK, Václav — ŠTEFANOVÁ, Dana (eds.), Menschen — Handlungen — Strukturen (Historisch-anthropologische Zugangsweisen in den Geschichtswissenschaften), České Budějovice 2001, pp. 407–422. 5 SCHUNKA, Alexander, A Missing Link: Daniel Ernst Jablonski as the Connection Between Comenius and Zinzendorf, in: LEMPA, H. — PEUCKER, P. (eds.), op. cit., p. 56. OPEN ACCESS 148 DVACÁTÉ STOLETÍ 1/2016 churches.”6 Even though they submiÞed eagerly to the secular authorities at the locations where they seÞled, they ascribed to them just a minor importance. Àe Caribbean islands were one of the first targets of Moravian mission and social-reform endeavor. Àey started in the 1730s on the islands St. Àomas, St. Croix and St. Jan, held by the Danes, with a view of spreading the Gospel to slaves deprived by the apathy of their masters of the chance to visit churches and improve their spiritual life. Àe same objectives led them in the 1750s to British islands of Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados, and St. KiÞs etc. Since the beginning, they respected the institution of slavery as a worldly establishment, they were even buying plantations to provide themselves with land on which to build a church, obtain steady income and develop a central location for fellow brethren from Europe to seÞle. Of all the missionary congregations in the English and other Protestant plantation colonies, Moravians were the only ones who actually worked slave estates themselves. Even though other denominations also owned slaves, they purchased them merely for domestic purposes, and were thus not associated directly with the system of the plantation economy. At the same time, the Moravian Church presented itself as welcoming the non-Europeans as “brothers”. Àe converts were offered basic education and encouraged in considering themselves to be on equal spiritual, if not secular, standing as the white Europeans. All this certainly had an effect of promoting the self-esteem of converts and of the Africans under Moravian influence in general. Àe common opinion in Jamaica (and probably elsewhere as well) was that “there are few, if any, negroes in this country so conceited, so foolishly proud, and consequently so difficult to manage, as those at Carmel [i.e. Moravian plantation], which evidently proceeds from too great a degree of indulgence, which negroes belonging to or under the care of the Brethren, will always experience”.7 Moravians in discourse advocated patriarchal order and depicted missionaries working on the fields or in shops side by side with their slaves as partners in the family of Christ, taking advantage of the long working hours for preaching, prayers and religious songs. Besides, the Moravian Church from the beginning insisted in supplementing the work of white missionaries with that of local “national helpers” (National-Helfer), entrusted with the spiritual as well as secular care of their fellow believers, visits of the sick, admonishing of the erring, even supervision of prayers and spiritual singing during services in absence of the missionary etc. Àe avowed goal was to approach more effectively the non-Europeans: “When the Eskimo, the Negro, the HoÞentot, the Cafre is being entirely won for the Lord, […] he can then gain admiÞance of Evan6 “Die Brüder-Kirche ist nicht eine deutsche Kirche, sondern sie had ihre Glieder in allen Theilen der Welt. […] Der deutsche Theil der Brüder-Kirche ist mit dem englischen und amerikanischen Theil zu Einem Ganzen verbunden, und dadurch ist die Brüder-Kirche von allen deutschen Landeskirchen wesentlich verschieden.“ (Wilhelm Kölbling in Nachrichten aus der Brüdergemeine 1849, p. 132, cit. by METTELE, Gisela, Erudition vs. Experience: Gender, Communal Narration, and the Shaping of Eighteenth-Century Moravian Religious ought, in: LEMPA, H. — Peucker,P. (eds.), op. cit., pp. 187–198.) 7 Quoted in FURLEY, Oliver W., Moravian Missionaries and Slaves in the West Indies, in: Caribbean Studies 5:2, 1965, p. 5. OPEN ACCESS MARKÉTA KŘÍŽOVÁ 149 gelium by his fellow tribesmen beÞer and more permanently then the missionary, who to a certain degree will always remain stranger for the natives.”8 (At the same time, it was recommended utmost care in choosing men and women for the role of native assistants. Only men and women of reputable character and great inner strength were to be promoted to prevent fallbacks.) Besides, the leaders of the church hoped to “release men and money for new work” aÝer older missions “raise their own ministry and cover their own expenses”;9 but also gave way to the establishment of Afro-American elites. Àese were firmly embedded in the new religious identity and, simultaneously, able and in fact forced to seek integration into the local society of colonial America.10 But even though the Moravian discourse ignored the problem of racial difference in the realm of the faith, the non-European members of the church still faced many forms of discrimination. Not only no African, Native American or Asian is known to have served on many of the official boards and commiÞees of the Moravian Church in the 18th and 19th centuries, nor is there any record of their participation in congregational council meetings, or in the elections of church officers. In the official documentation as well as in the promotional texts produced by the Church, the race of non-Europeans was always specified. For example in periodical that reprinted the reports of Moravian missionaries from various parts of the world, the editors introduced leÞers of Peter Blair as following: “As it is well known, the brother Blair is a coloured from Jamaica, now transferred to a new post in Bethany [on the Mosquito Coast]. Recently had lost his (also coloured) wife.”11 None of the leÞers by white missionaries, published in the course of the whole of the 19th century, had been accompanied by similar explication, with the place of birth and the ethnicity of wife. Àus the “coloured brethren” were constantly reminded of their specificity and prevented from identifying fully with the body of the Moravian Church. THE BLACK BROTHER Peter Denton Blair was born on January 11, 1835 in the township of Cheapside, Jamaica, in a family of ex-slaves, liberated only the year before (and in the subse8 Wenn ein Eskimo, ein Neger, ein Hottetott, ein Kaffer ganz für den Herrn gewonnen ist, […] dann kann er unter seinen Volksgenossen in vieler Beziehung besser und nachhaltiger dem Evangelium Eingang verschaffen, als es ein Missionar vermag, der den Eingeborenen bis auf einen gewissen Grad immer ein Fremder bleibt. (Biography of the missionary Peter Blair, Peter Blair, Ein Lebensbild aus der Moskito-Mission, in: Mitteilungen aus der Brüder-Gemeine zur Förderung christlichen Gemeinschaft 1898, No. 1, pp. 179–180) 9 HUTTON, J[oseph] E[dmund], A History of Moravian Missions, London 1922, pp. 478–479, quoting the conclusions of the general meeting (Synod) of the Moravian Church of the year 1848. 10 See CATRON, John, Slavery, Ethnic Identity, and Christianity in Eighteenth-Century Moravian Antigua, in: Journal of Moravian History 14:2 (2014), pp. 153–178. 11 Br. Blair ist bekanntlich ein farbiger von Jamaica, jetzt auf dem neuen Platz in Bethany angestellt. Vor einiger Zeit hat er seine (ebenfalls farbige) Frau durch ihren Tod verloren. (Missionsblatt 32:11, 1868, p. 234) OPEN ACCESS 150 DVACÁTÉ STOLETÍ 1/2016 quent years subjected to the system of “apprenticeship”, that is, the continued subjection to the white master).12 Àey have been, however, for many decades members of the Moravian Church, a fact that had given them high self-esteem and a chance to improve their position in society. Àis information, as well as many others, is given in the biography of Blair, published on the occasion of his death in 1897.13 At this moment explication is needed of the peculiarities of the genre of Moravian biographies (Lebensläufe). Since the 1750s, members of the Moravian Church were expected to leave behind a description of their life histoires and, above all, to give an account of their faith. Àe memoirs were either autobiographical or wriÞen by someone close to the departed (spouse, child, pastor). And even the autobiographical accounts always ended with a description of the person’s death. Memoirs were read aloud during the burial and formed a central component of the funeral liturgy. Some of them were later incorporated into diaries of the respective communities and the Church periodicals (like the Gemein-Nachrichten, the “News from the Community”, diffused first in manuscript form and since 1818 in print).14 In other words, the memoirs are higly selective as for the factual information and their interpretation, and markedly stereotypized and ritualized in their style, especially those — and this is the case of the biography of Blair — that were not wriÞen personally. (Àe “course of life” of Blair described his fellow-missionary from the Mosquito Coast, August Martin). On the other hand, they still contain valuable data and, especially, enable the researcher to understand the inner discourse of the Moravian community. As for Blair, “Negro from Jamaica” (Neger aus Jamaica) whose parents and grandparents were all “real Negroes of pure, unmixed race” (Eltern und Großeltern waren echte Neger von reiner, unvermischter Rasse),15 the characteristics assigned to him by the biography are those of humility, work ethics and piety. Even though these were, of course, required from all members of the Moravian Church, they were especially accentuated in case of the non-Europeans. In the first decades of existence of the Church, in the first half of the 18th century, its leaders doubted the possibility to reform the European “Babylon”16 and announced that “when all the lands where nowadays live the Christians will revert thoroughly to paganism, then will come the hour of Africa, Asia and America”.17 By appraising the “rude simplicity” 12 For the institution of “apprenticeship”, see Charles H. WESLEY, “The Abolition of Negro Apprenticeship in the British Empire”, The Journal of Negro History 23:2 (1938), pp. 155–199. 13 Peter Blair, Ein Lebensbild…, pp. 179–196. 14 SCHMID, Pia, Moravian Memoirs as a Source for the History of Education, in: LEMPA, H. — PEUCKER, P. (eds.), op. cit., p. 169. See also Moravian Women’s Memoirs (Their Related Lives, 1750–1820), trans. and ed. Katherine M. Faull, Syracuse 1996; METTELE, Gisela, Erudition…, pp. 187–198. 15 Peter Blair, Ein Lebensbild…, pp. 180–181. 16 von ZINZENDORF, Nikolaus Ludwig, Eine Sammlung Offentlicher Reden… in dem Nordlichen Theil von America der das Englische Canada ausmachet von allerley Christlichen Religions-Meetings gehalten…, Vol. 2, Büdingen 1744, p. 145. 17 Wenn alle die Lande, darinnen die Christen itzo wohnen, ganz wieder zu Heidentum worden sind, alsdenn wird die Stunde von Afrika, Asia und Amerika kommen (Rede vom OPEN ACCESS MARKÉTA KŘÍŽOVÁ 151 (Einfalt) of the Africans and Native Americans, the Moravians opposed themselves explicitly to the intellectualism of the European Enlightenment and struggled to return to the very roots of Christianity. Later, however, they interiorized the racialized discourse and presented the non-Europeans as inherently depraved. Àe virtues of the elect ones of their midst were, therefore, presented more as an exception than logical outcome of the meeting of primordial simplicity with Christian doctrine, as was the case of earlier accounts.18 For Blair, it was stated explicitly that “his skin was deeply black. But in the black case lived a soul early awoken and vivid”.19 Blair grew up in the house of his grandfather. (Àe care for children within the frame of extended family was a common usage among the liberated slaves of the British Caribbean that enabled the parents to search for earnings out of home.) He aÞended one of the Moravian elementary schools, learned the trade of tailor and, at the same time, frequented the “Sunday school” for adolescents of the church. Here he drew aÞention of the teachers. “By his diligence and aÞention, as well as his quiet, humble conduct and his punctual obedience he distinguished himself so from the other pupils that he was recommended for acceptance to the teaching institute in Fairfield.”20 AÝer serving for short time as assistant teacher, he was in 1856 chosen for the recently established mission of the Mosquito Coast. Àis mission region — a narrow stripe of land stretching along the Caribbean coast of present-day Honduras and Nicaragua — was rather specific even within the frame of the Moravian Church activities. It was a predominantly English-speaking enclave within Spanish America, on the frontier between the specific zones of influence of the two empires, never officially colonized, but thanks to a welcoming aÞitude of its inhabitants maintaining extremely tight political and cultural relations with Great Britain. At the same time, it became a place of intense cultural mixing and mutual influencing of various racial and cultural groups — Native Americans of several tribes, Africans who escaped from Spanish colonies in the hinterland or the Caribbean islands, as well as aventurers from Europe nations who intermarried with the local population and identified with the region, in spite of formally professing their allegiance to their sovereigns in the Old World. Grund-Plane unserer Heidenmissionen (19-V-1746), in: von ZINZENDORF, Nikolaus Ludwig, Die an Synodum der Brüder in Zeyst… gehaltene Reden, Büdingen 1746, p. 188). 18 For the idealization of non-European in the early Moravian discourse, see KŘÍŽOVÁ, Markéta, La ciudad ideal en el desierto: Proyectos misionales de la Compaňía de Jesús y la Iglesia Morava en la América colonial, Praha 2004, pp. 159–169; for the image of non-European in Moravian discourse of the 19th century see also LASCH, Alexander (ed.), Mein Herz blieb in Afrika. Eine kommentierte Anthologie Herrnhutischer Missionsberichte von den Rändern der Welt am Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts, Hildesheim — Zürich — New York 2009. 19 Seine Haut war dunkelschwartz. Aber in der schwartzen Hülle lebte ein von früh angeweckter und lebendiger Geist. (Peter Blair, Ein Lebensbild…, p. 181) 20 Durch Fleiß und Aufmerksamkeit, sowie durch sien stilles, bescheidenes Wesen und seiner pünktlichen Gehorsamkeit zeichnete er sich so sehr vor den anderen Schülern aus, daß er zur Aufnahme in die Lehrerbildungsanstalt in Fairfield empfhlen wurde. (Ibidem, p. 181) OPEN ACCESS 152 DVACÁTÉ STOLETÍ 1/2016 In the 19th century the Mosquito Coast turned into a point of intersection of imperial interests of the Great Britain, USA, the Central American republics, but also several of the German states. Within the frame of the (failed) Prussian colonization and commercial project came in the year 1848 also the first three Moravian missionaries. In the subsequent decades the Moravian Church succeeded in establishing a dozen of mission stations among the “Indian” populations in the interior, as well as “city congregations” in the principal clusters of seÞlement, Bluefields and Pearl Lagoon, located on the shore and inhabited primarily with the English speaking creoles of marked African apparence. Until 1860 there existed a formally independent “Mosquito” or “Miskito” Kingdom under the protectorate of the Great Britain. Àe polity was then incorporated into Nicaragua as a “reserve”, with a semi-autonomous status. In the year 1898 its independence was ended and the region was fully included into the Nicaraguan state.21 Due to their long struggle with the Spaniards and the equally long established economic and social ties with England the inhabitants of the Mosquito Coast were markedly Anglophilic, English being the language of prestige. At the same time, the complicated demographic development brought to the fore individuals, lineages and groups of African origin. Between the 17th and the 18th century, the “Sambo Miskitos”, of mixed Afro-Indian descent, acquired dominance over the “Miskito Indians”, that is, the “native” demographical layer (although the historians and archaeologicsts are not sure how “original” these populations were, given the demographic collapse in the first decades of colonization and the subsequent intense populational shiÝs).22 From the end of the 18th century, the “Creoles” — blacks and mulaÞoes from the Caribbean Islands — acquired the political and economic predominance in the region, superimposing themselves over the Miskito Indians and Sambo Miskitos, hereafter lumped tgether under the denominations “Indians”.23 It can be even stated that the Mosquito Coast was at the end of the 18th and throughout the 19th century one 21 For the history of the Mosquito Coast, see FLOYD, Troy S., The Anglo-Spanish Struggle for Mosquitia, Albuquerque 1967; NAYLOR, Robert, Penny Ante Imperialism: The Mosquito Shore and the Bay of Honduras, 1600–1914 — A Case Study in British Informal Empire, London — Toronto 1989; VILAS, Carlos M., Estado, clase y etnicidad: La Costa Atlántica de Nicaragua, México 1992. For the Moravian mission in this region see WILSON, John F., Obra morava en Nicaragua: Trasfondo y breve historia, Managua 1990; KŘÍŽOVÁ, Markéta, Reyes, emprendedores, misioneros: Rivalidad imperial y sincretismo colonial en la Costa de Mosquitia, siglo XIX, Prague 2015. 22 OFFEN, Karl H., The Sambo and Tawira Miskitu: The Colonial Origins and Geography of Intra-Miskitu Differentiation in Eastern Nicaragua and Honduras, in: Ethnohistory 49:2 (2002), pp. 319–372; HELMS, Mary, Negro or Indians? The changing identity of a frontier population, in: Pescatello, Ann M. (ed.), Old Roots in new lands, Westport, pp. 157–172; MAGNUS, Richard, The Prehistoric and Modern Subsistence Patterns of the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, in: STARK, Barbara L. — VOORHIES, Barbara (eds.), Prehistoric Coastal Adaptations, New York 1978, pp. 61–80; NEWSON, Linda, Indian survival in colonial Nicaragua, Norman — London 1987. 23 GORDON, Edmund, Disparate Diasporas: Identity and Politics in an African-Nicaraguan Community, Austin 1998. OPEN ACCESS MARKÉTA KŘÍŽOVÁ 153 of the few regions of America where African origin, especially if complemented by ability to speak English, was not only not a social disadvantage, but actually status that opened way for social ascendance. On the other hand, there was a considerable degree of biological mixing as well as cultural syncretism and the inhabitants of the Mosquito Coast, “Indians” and “Creoles” alike, soon established a firm notion of being different from other Afro-Caribbeans. Since the beginning the Moravian missionaries, many of whose were of German origin and could not speak English properly,24 only with difficulties gained their respect. Àis, coupled with rapid expansion of mission work and the lack of European missionaries, provoked the calls for sending of “native assistants” from the Caribbean. As was explained in Blair’s obituary, they did not consider necessary that these were “from the same nation” as the neophytes on the Mosquito Coast. “Only a certain kinship of the various tribes is necessary. […] In general there is not so great difference between the nations, as might be thought on the first glance.”25 In other words, for the Moravians all blacks were essentially the same, enclosed in their physical distinctiveness and the stigma of slave origin. Besides, the leaders of the Church, themselves embedded in their transnational self-identification as permanent pilgrims, used to periodical interchange of pastors, missionaries, but also artisans or other professionals, certainly did not consider the relocation of bachelor or twenty years within the frame of the same tropical ecosystem of the Caribbean to be of any relevance. Àe more so, because he came of a family of ex-slaves, forcibly uprooted and removed from Africa to the New World. However, for Blair the invitation — or rather the order — to reseÞle to Central America came as a sudden and unpleasant surprise. Àis is proved by a source that in 24 According to the North American engineer who wrote a thorough report on the Mosquito Coast at the end of the 19th century, the Moravians have labored “under a great disadvantage in being of German origin, and having to acquire both the English and the Mosquito languages for use in their work; and this detracts, perhaps, more than they are aware from their efficiency”. (de KALB, Courtenay, Nicaragua: Studies on the Mosquito Shore in 1892, in: Journal of the American Geographical Society 25 (1893), p. 268) Also the Moravian superiors themselves commented extensively the lack of knowledge of the English language from part of the missionaries and the problems this created in the management of the congregations. “The main complaint again and again brought against our schools, by which he tried to excuse all the irregular scholl attendance of his children, rested upon the fact that the youngsters did not get proper instruction of English,” reproduced the missionary August Martin the words of one of the local chiefs. (Ein Hauptvorwurf aber, den er unsern Schulen immer wieder machte, durch den er alle Klagen über unregelmäßigen Schulbesuch seiner Kinder zu entkräften suchte, bestand darin, daß die Jugend nicht genug in Kenntnis des Englischen gefördet werde. SCHNEIDER, Hermann Gustav, Moskito: Zur Erinnerung an die Feier des fünfzigjähriges Bestehens der Mision er Brüdergemeine in Mittel Amerika, Herrnhut 1899, vol. 2, p. 60) 25 Es ist nicht immer notwendig, daß ein eingeborener Gehilfe gerade unter dem Volkstamm arbeitet, dem er selbst angehört. Nur eine gewisse Verwandtschaft der verschiedenen Stämme wird erforderlich sein. […] Übrigens ist hier der Unterschied der Nationen nicht ganz so groß, als man auf den ersten Blick zu denken geneigt is. (Ibidem, p. 180) OPEN ACCESS 154 DVACÁTÉ STOLETÍ 1/2016 an interesting way complements his official biography: a collection of leÞers that he sent, approximatly once in a year, to some of the members of the highest leadership of the Moravian Church, the so called Conference of Elders (Unitäts Ältesten Conferenz), who were able to read English. Àey are preserved within the collections of the central archive of the Moravian Church in Herrnhut. Àe first of these preserved leÞers, dated in November 1855 in Fairfield (Jamaica), that is, immediately aÝer Blair came to know his new vocation, revealed his strong identification with Jamaica, his family and friends. “[I had] unexpectedly received a call through Mr. Buchner to go next spring with Mr. Feurig to the Mosquito Coast as teacher in one of the schools,” he wrote. “It came very unexpectedly to me. […] It is true I am serving the Lord and his cause, but leaving my native country, friends, parents, and relatives, I cannot help saying that sometimes I feel my faith is weak when I think of the future. […] However, I should consider it a favour, if aÝer two years (sometime) I should be permiÞed to visit Jamaica again to see my friends, especially my mother.”26 Blair thus submiÞed to the will of his superiors, giving proof of the supreme of virtues of the true Christian and member of the Church, obedience and discipline. In the subsequent leÞers, however, repeatedly appeared petitions to be allowed to spend some time in Jamaica — most of them being rejected by the Mission Department of the Moravian Church.27 Fascinating is the lack of understanding in the basic social relations: Blair asked to be allowed to visit his mother, the superiors from Herrnhut explained that she is being taken care of by the congregation in Jamaica and thus the visit of her son was not necessary. Here clashed the usages of white Moravians, accustomed to the raising of children in “institutes”, frequent separation of families whose members were being sent aÝer specific tasks around the world, and the caring for old people in “widow’s houses” and “widower’s houses”, with the strong familiar ties that characterized the social life of Afro-Caribbeans, in spite of — or maybe because of — the legacy of slavery. (Caracteristically, the dedication to his mother was not mentioned in the obituary of Blair, as it did not fit into the repertoire of highranking virtues.) Still, Blair in the subsequent years pursued his tasks with utmost sincerity, so that he was soon promoted from the rank of assistance teacher to that of regular missionary (1861). His leÞers revealed numerous interesting aspects of the everyday life on the Mosquito Coast. One of them regarded the different motivations and, as a result, different behavior of school children. For black pupils of Jamaica the Moravian schools, descendants of the ex-slaves, offered the opportunity of social ascendance. Àerefore, they could be disciplined much more easily than the children of the inhabitants of the Mosquito Coast, who had never been direct subjects to anyone and for a long time maintained their economic independence, in spite of being partially in26 Letter of Blair to Heinrich Wullschlägel, Fairfield, 22-XII-1855, Archiv der Brüder-Gemeine, Herrnhut (hereafter ABU), R.15.H.II.b.18.a.1855. 27 For example in 1859 he wrote: “Now dear Sir I thank you for your Kindness, and obeying your admonition I have concluded, that I will give up and have given up already my thought and hope of going to Jamaica on a mere visit.” (Peter Blair to unknown addressee, 10-II1859, ABU, R.15.H.II.b.18.a.1859) OPEN ACCESS MARKÉTA KŘÍŽOVÁ 161 ABSTRACT CREOLE PATRIOTISM VS. RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM IN 19TH CENTURY CARIBBEAN: THE CASE OF PETER BLAIR Àe article resumes the life story of Peter Blair from Jamaica (1835–1897), member of the Moravian Church and long-term teacher and missionary on the Mosquito Coast. On this background and in the broader context of the study of Moravian Church missions in the New World are analyzed the processes of identity making in the colonial and post-colonial Caribbean, the problems of racial, national and religious (self)identifications, but especially the mechanisms of “creolization”, i.e. the cultural and social “regrounding”, the formation of new and coherent social formations out of the fragmentation brought about by the colonization. KEYWORDS Peter Blair, Moravian Church, Jamaica, Mosquito Coast, mission, creolization ABSTRAKT KREOLSKÝ PATRIOTISMUS VERSUS NÁBOŽENSKÝ ENTUSIASMUS V KARIBIKU V 19. STOLETÍ: PŘÍPAD PETERA BLAIRA Článek shrnuje životní příběh Petera Blaira z Jamajky (1835–1897), člena Moravské církve a dlouholetého učitele a misionáře na Pobřeží Moskytů. Na pozadí tohoto příběhu a v širším kontextu studia moravských misií v Novém světě jsou analyzovány procesy utváření identit v koloniálním a postkoloniálním Karibiku, problémy rasové, národní a náboženské (sebe)identifikace, ale zejména mechanismy „kreolizace“, tedy kulturního a sociálního „zakořeňování“, utváření nových a koherentních sociálních formací z roztříštěnosti způsobené kolonizací. KLÍČOVÁ SLOVA Peter Blair, Moravská církev, Jamajka, Pobřeží Moskytů, misie, kreolizace Markéta Křížová Center for Ibero-American Studies, Faculty of Arts, Charles University [email protected] OPEN ACCESS